We didn’t have much time to talk about, let alone arrange, any fantasy scenarios in the weeks that followed. Sasha and I got extremely lucky booking holiday parties, and our schedule was the fullest it had ever been. Kris had even more work than usual. We managed our daily schedule, but our longer sessions and play parties started to fall by the wayside. We promised we’d find time for at least one more extended session together before I went to New Mexico for Christmas with my family.
The last Friday before I left, I expected a play party, but instead of getting home around seven thirty and rushing us off to the night’s locale, Kris stomped in just after five. I’d never seen her home so early.
“Hello?” I called from the kitchen. I’d been looking at the fridge and debating cooking up the meager options or going to the store.
“Hi,” Kris answered in a nasal voice. She flopped onto the couch. I looked her over. Her nose was red and she looked pale and exhausted.
“Are you sick?” We’d managed to make it through the fall with nothing worse than a brief head cold for me. Kris had bragged that she never, ever got sick.
Kris sniffled. “I’m dying.”
“Want some tea before you do?” She made a noncommittal noise and I put the kettle on.
“I was fine this morning, just a little congested,” she said.
“It happens.”
“Not to me!”
I walked to the living room and stood in front of her, feeling her forehead. “I don’t think you have a fever, but you’re clammy. Why don’t you get in your pajamas and some slippers, I’ll make you some tea and soup, and you relax?” I ruffled her short hair.
“We’re not going to play tonight.” She looked miserable.
“Clearly. Go get changed.”
Kris dragged herself up the stairs. I made us both mint tea with honey and pulled a batch of tortilla soup from the freezer, one I’d been particularly proud of, along with the last portion of frozen tomato soup.
“Tomato or tortilla soup?” I asked when I heard her coming down the stairs.
“Tomato, and can I have a grilled cheese sandwich? And orange soda?”
“Do you turn into a little kid when you’re sick?”
“Don’t laugh.” She shuffled up to a chair in the dining room. I’d never seen her flannel pajamas before, even in the laundry, and I knew why. Kristen Andersen, wunderkind and dom, was wearing baby blue jammies with monkeys printed all over. Sweet cartoon monkeys with bananas.
“This is a new side of you.” I turned my back and stifled a giggle.
Kris slumped in her chair. “I don’t get sick,” she said. “So I don’t know how to act. And these are my only pajamas. My mom bought them.”
“You’re fine. I’m just teasing.” I poked around in the fridge. “No orange soda but there’s ginger ale. A grilled cheese seems possible, though. Want it with the soup or before?”
“With the soup. In triangles.” I brought her a mug of tea and a can of ginger ale. She sipped the tea and complained that it was hot.
I wanted to tease her more, but she looked so pathetic I could only feel sorry for her. Sorry and unexpectedly fond of her. “Go find something for us to watch, some bad TV or a movie. Relax.”
“Phoenix?” She looked at me with huge eyes, her glasses put away for the night. “Thank you for taking care of me. Nobody ever takes care of me.”
“How can they, if you never get sick?” I stirred the soup.
“I mean it.”
“You’re welcome. Grab a blanket and get comfortable on the couch. I’ll be there in a second.”
We settled in to a cheesy romantic comedy, the last of the tomato soup I’d made the month before, plenty of fluids, and grilled cheese in triangles. I tucked the blanket around Kris. We ate with just the sound of the movie.
“This is delicious.” She slurped her spoonful, despite her usually faultless manners.
“Thanks.”
“It’s the best thing you’ve ever made.”
“You’ve had this before, remember? This is leftovers.”
“I never remember what I eat. I just gobble it up as fast as possible and get back to work.”
“In that case I’m going to start making a lot less effort.” I nudged her.
“I’m sorry. I should pay more attention.” She sounded genuinely sad.
“You’re okay.” I rubbed her back lightly.
“Maybe my priorities are all wrong. I’ve been so stressed out. That’s probably why I got sick.” She blew her nose. “You know what I have planned for Christmas? Catching up on reports I should have read last week.”
I frowned. “You’re not going to see your family at all?”
She shook her head. “I see my parents once a year, for their wedding anniversary at the end of July. I call them every couple of weeks and on holidays, and that’s plenty. I used to go for Christmas or Thanksgiving, but I hate traveling around the holidays. My brother and his wife live in Seattle with their kids, and my sister comes in with her kid, and I feel like I’m intruding on family time. They have this completely different relationship with my parents, and then I show up and everyone tries to catch up, but half the time I’m checking my phone or trying to write an email under the table. Besides, they always want to know about my personal life, and what do I say?”
“What do you say?”
“When I had a girlfriend, I’d mention her, but I haven’t brought anyone home in a decade. For a while it’s been, ‘I’m working a lot. I’m dating but no one special.’”
“Ouch, what a cold phrase.”
“They want me to get married and have kids. Any hint of a serious relationship would give them the wrong idea. Besides, I am not discussing anything kinky with them, and I haven’t had a girlfriend for years; I’ve had subs. What would you say in that situation?”
I shrugged.
Kris thought for a minute. “Actually, that’s a good question. What are you going to say to your family?”
“It’s different. They’re perfectly happy to talk about my career and what everyone is reading. They don’t pry about my personal life.”
“Is it denial? They’re uncomfortable with you being gay so they’d rather not talk about it?”
I laughed. “No. If anything, they miss Amanda. She and my mom still email, mostly about work since they’re both English lit people. Every once in a while, my mom will tell me what Amanda’s doing, or ask if I’ve talked to her lately. I mean, Amanda and I are friends on Facebook and we parted on good terms, but there’s a reason we broke up, you know? We ran out of common ground, and it’s hard to keep a friendship going with your long-distance ex when you want to talk about the nitty-gritty of making a living out of art, and she wants to talk about theory and academia. Except, my parents also want to talk about theory and academia. Amanda has a serious girlfriend now, but my parents used to try to get us back together, like for years. She was the great student that I never was, and my mom sort of mentored her, so they wish they could keep her in the family. Unfortunately, no one I’ve dated since has been anything like that.”
“So it’s not that you’re queer, just that you’re a weird artist.”
“A weird artist who isn’t dating anyone they can relate to. Sometimes Carolena would get nerdy about politics, and my dad liked that for a minute. But she was so militant. Everything was revolution and reclaiming Aztlan, and my dad had been so deep in that when he was young that he was like, ‘Yeah, but how are you actually learning from our mistakes?’ He teaches at least one student like that every semester, so he can get cynical. As for my mom, she gets bored if arguments aren’t sufficiently nuanced, and Carolena’s were not.”
I could see Kris trying to work something out in her head and frowning with the effort.
“You don’t know what Aztlan is, do you?” I asked.
“I’m making a mental note to look it up.”
Kris sneezed and I handed her a box of tissues. “It’s the legendary original home of the Aztecs. But it’s also what some people call the part of the US that used to belong to Mexico. Well, Spain before that. So the West or the Southwest, depending on your view. Some Chicano activists are or were really into the idea that it should be its own country. Carolena was all about it, and really liked to quote all these activists. But my dad knew those activists personally, had worked with them, had even taught one or two, and he was over it. He’d been having that conversation since the seventies.”
“Wow, your family is something else.” She blew her nose. “My parents usually just talk about baseball and gardening.”
“It’s normal to me,” I said. “I don’t really think about it.”
“Is your sister like that too?”
“Are you kidding? She works in college administration. My brother-in-law is an adjunct at like three colleges. Their kid goes to a daycare on a college campus operated by education professors and their grad students. When I go home, I’m the only person in the house without at least a master’s. Well, the only person over the age of two.”
“And the rest of your family’s like this too?”
I chuckled. “And then some. The rest of my family are teachers. My abuela, my tias, most of my tios, half of my cousins and the people they married. Everybody is a goddamn teacher. When I was a kid doing cartwheels outside, they’d be like, ‘Don’t you want to go in and read a book?’”
“I wonder what they’d think of me,” Kris said.
“Working at a tech start-up and no grad school? Please. You know the answer.”
“Wow, and I thought I was impressive. I guess you won’t be mentioning me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What exactly would I tell them if I did, anyway? ‘I’m living with a woman, but ours isn’t a typical relationship. She has certain, ahem, requirements that I meet nicely and I get a place to live out of it’? Weird artist with a puny bachelor’s degree is hard enough, but what’s going on here? That is way outside the understanding of my family.”
“You’d think leftist academics would be more progressive,” she said.
I shook my head. “My mom did not get a doctorate so her daughter could get consensually slapped around for housing. She’s second-wave all the way. And you’re a white person with money! My dad would die. No, he’d lecture me about self-worth. This would not make sense to them, believe me.”
She blushed. “They don’t need to know the details. I don’t know, maybe I’m your roommate then. Don’t they know you moved?”
“Sure, but I made it sound like I found a place with a friend of a friend and that my roommate and I are basically ships in the night.”
“That’s not so far from the truth, actually.”
“Except here I am, taking care of you when you’re sick. Plus all the fucking.”
She gave me a bright, if sickly, smile. “You’re really fun, Phoenix.”
I did a little dance with my arms and shoulders, illustrating how fun I was. Kris laughed.
She looked at me for a minute. “It’s strange how little I know you outside of, well, what it is we do.”
I cleared out dishes and took them to the dishwasher. “What do you want to know? I’m an open book. Do you want more tea or anything?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “Why are you named Phoenix?”
“My mom’s favorite myth.” I sat back down on the couch. “She said she wanted to ‘impart me with the ability to always find rebirth and renewal within myself.’ English professors, am I right?”
“What’s your sister’s name again?” she asked with a tiny smile.
“Connie. Well, Consuelo, after my grandmother. My dad picked that one. She’s always been lucky.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m named after my grandma too.”
“Look at us, learning all about each other. A whole new level of intimacy.”
She smiled. “We should hang out more often.”
“Yeah, but you’re never around for that.”
Her smile faded. “Do you think I’m making the wrong choices with my life?”
“I really don’t feel qualified to answer that one.” I pulled my feet up under me.
“I wonder sometimes. People have been telling me for years that I work too much, that there’s more to life than work. I never took it seriously because I loved working so much. But lately, I’m not sure. Seeing you so excited about what you’re doing, about your shows…I miss that feeling.”
“You’re losing your passion?”
“I guess. Maybe it was more fun when there was less riding on it. Now that I’m so close to the top, I feel like I can’t slip, but not even that. Even just holding steady would be failing. I have to keep expanding, keep going up, and it’s not like it used to be. In the beginning I was working with these two great people, Sam and Amy, but then he moved on to another start-up, and she quit and had a baby a couple of years ago.”
“You also lost your creative partners.”
“It changed things.” She sighed.
“Were they like your best friends?”
She shook her head. “We weren’t exactly buddies, but we were great at developing ideas together. Sometimes we got in huge arguments and couldn’t stand each other, but in the end we always came up with something great. We had very different lives, and I don’t think we always understood each other, but intellectually, we all clicked.”
“I get that. Sasha and I would probably not have become friends if we didn’t perform together, but she’s my favorite person to create with and that makes me love her. We annoy each other sometimes, but we appreciate each other very deeply and it makes us good friends. We’re both better at what we do because of our work together.” I drained my mug. “Maybe you need another partner.”
“Maybe. I feel worn out, I guess, and I don’t know if I could offer the energy I had when we started. Maybe Sam and Amy had the right idea. They worked hard and made their money, and then wanted to do something else. Amy said other eager young things were ready to take it over, and we should let them.”
“You could,” I said. “You could sell and pretty much be set for life, right?”
Kris gave a modest shrug. “I don’t know about set for life, but I’d have a lot of options about when and how much I’d need to work. But what would I do with myself if I wasn’t working?”
“Um, whatever you want?”
“What’s that?” She gave me a helpless look.
“Oh, Kris, that is the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Maybe I’m just sick.” She blew her nose again. “Maybe when I’m better, everything will look different.”
“Sure,” I said, though I doubted it. Kris’s life depressed me. I didn’t want to spend all my time working, and I had a hard time understanding why she did.
She looked at me, concerned. “Phe? Am I the only white person you’ve ever dated?”
I laughed. “We’re not dating, remember?”
“Right.” She looked down. To my surprise, she sounded a little sad. “I guess I’m putting it delicately.”
“Beth was white,” I said. “What about you? Please don’t tell me it’s been all white girls for you.”
She shook her head. “I mean, I’ve had lots of different play partners.”
When she didn’t continue, I prompted her. “But?”
“I’ve only actually ever had one girlfriend, Laurie. So I guess I’ve only had a white girlfriend, a suburban girlfriend, a blond girlfriend, a girlfriend I met when we were both twenty. I loved her. I thought we’d be together forever. I’d always worked, but after college I started working ninety hours a week, and after a while she got tired of it. She said I needed to change or she’d be gone, and I didn’t really believe her. Eventually, she left. We were together for six years.”
“Shit,” I said before I could stop myself. “So when you said that stuff when we met, that stuff about why you don’t date, is that all based on one relationship?”
Kris sighed. “Pretty much. I was a huge geek in high school, and amazingly, a geeky dyke with glasses and acne does not get much action in high school. And I knew I wanted kink, and I didn’t know how to express that. I thought there was something wrong with me. When I got to college and I found out about sex clubs? Sex clubs where women wanted me to hit them? That’s all I did, other than school and work, for about a year. I did not date. I didn’t even want to see scene people outside of the scene. I went to school with Laurie and she insisted on studying together. Of course she was actually just trying to get me to spend time with her. When I finally realized she was interested in me, I was shocked. I thought I’d be the sort of person that never happens for. I fell for her as soon as I realized she liked me.”
“Was Laurie into kink?”
She nodded. “I was nervous about telling her that, well, I’d never had sex without flogging somebody first. But she just laughed and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to try that! As long as it’s not the only thing we do.’ It was great. We went to play parties together in Seattle, and I realized that friendships that started in a sex club weren’t limited to that. Once we moved here, we just played at home, in our home, because I was so busy.”
“And after you broke up, you never had another girlfriend? It’s been like ten years.”
She looked sheepish. “I worked and I had play partners. I’d go on dates sometimes, but for a long time I was very hung up on Laurie, and that wasn’t fair. And then I figured that I had one big love, and that was more than lots of people get.”
“Jesus, you are depressing when you’re sick,” I said with exaggerated exhaustion. Kris laughed. “How can you stand it?”
“I guess I got used to it.” She suddenly sounded completely wiped out. “I think I’m more tired than I realized. I should probably go to bed.”
“Of course. Let me know if you need anything.”
She nodded. As she walked past me, our eyes met, and I could swear I saw tears.
* * *
After that Friday night, I didn’t see Kris much for the rest of the weekend. She stayed in her room and slept. I occasionally brought her soup or crackers or tea, but mostly she fended for herself. We missed our usual Sunday afternoon session because she was sleeping. I found myself slacking off on household chores, and also incredibly horny.
Early Monday morning, Kris knocked on my door as I was packing.
“Feeling better?” I asked after I invited her in.
“Much, though I am taking my first sick day in a long time. Thanks for taking care of me.”
“I was happy to.” I turned to face her. “I had a really good time with you, just hanging out.”
“Like actual friends,” she said.
“We should do that more often.”
“If I ever have time again.” She sounded like she was joking, but there was a little sadness behind it.
I swallowed my impulse to tell her that she could make time, and zipped my suitcase. “I can’t believe I’m actually ready to go two hours before I have to head to the airport. I’m usually stuffing things in a bag ten minutes after I was supposed to leave my apartment, missing the BART connection I needed, and racing through the terminal. What am I going to do with my free time?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve been letting your chores slide.”
“Sorry! I’ll get on that right now. I don’t want to leave you with a mess.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” she said, her voice low. Oh.
“It’s not eight thirty. I’m supposed to tell you no if it’s outside our time. You wanted somebody you could have, but not any time you wanted.” I fiddled with the suitcase zipper as I eyed her carefully.
“This isn’t about our arrangement, Phe. It’s not a requirement or a trick. This is just me thinking you’re hot and wanting to play. That is, if you want to.” Her voice was a little huskier than usual, a lingering result of her cold probably, but very hot.
I kept my gaze trained on my luggage as I answered, “What would this entail?”
“Well, I want to order you around a lot. But only if you’re interested.”
Her hair was messy and she had her glasses on. She was wearing dark jeans with a plain T-shirt, her feet bare. Sexy Kris, tall and grinning in my doorway. Of course I wanted her. I wanted to do whatever she told me to do.
“Yes,” I said.
She smiled. “But tell me to stop if you don’t like where I go with this.”
“Obviously.”
She adopted a serious expression. “You’ve been lazy,” she said. “You haven’t been doing your job.”
“I’m so sorry.” I played along, batting my lashes. “I’ll do better.”
“You certainly will, and you’ll do it naked.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take off your clothes.”
“Kris, no, I couldn’t.”
“You’ll do what you’re told.”
“Please,” I faux-begged.
“Strip off your clothes, or I will rip them off.”
I felt my nipples harden. I loved this. Slowly, I peeled off my sweater, slipped off my shoes, and wriggled out of my tight jeans. I kept my bra and panties on, and tried to cover myself with my hands.
“All of it,” she said.
I turned my back to her and unhooked my blue lace bra, then let it drop onto my bed. I stepped out of my matching panties.
“Turn around,” she said.
I faced her, still clutching my breasts and shielding my pussy with my hand.
“Go downstairs. You have a lot of work to do. The house is a mess.”
“You want me to clean it? While I’m naked?”
“Obviously. Don’t ask stupid questions. Go on.”
I headed down the stairs. The house wasn’t actually a mess. There were dirty dishes in the sink that I hadn’t bothered to load into the dishwasher, a hamper of laundry I’d taken downstairs but hadn’t started, and a few scattered items around the downstairs that needed to be put away. The counters could have done with a wipe and the floors needed to be swept, but that was it. I started by tossing the laundry in the washer. Kris stood behind me and watched.
She followed me to the kitchen, where I rinsed dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Kris said nothing as I tidied up. It reminded me of the beginning of our time together, that first day she watched me in my domestic service.
As I sprayed the counters and wiped them, Kris settled into a chair in the dining room where she could see me. “I always imagine you like this,” she said. “Whenever I come home to a clean house or a home cooked meal, I think of you doing this for me, like I told you to, submissive and naked. Sometimes when I’m working, I get a vision of you on your knees, barely dressed, scrubbing my floor, and all I want is to come home and fuck you.”
“Then why don’t you?” I said over my shoulder.
“That’s a good question.” She waited a beat. “Put those down. Come here.”
I set the cleaning supplies on the counter and started to walk toward her.
“No,” she said. “Crawl.”
I dropped to my knees and crawled over the cold tile of the kitchen, then the smooth, cool hardwood. I stopped in front of her, my face inches from her splayed legs.
“So pretty.” She caressed my cheek.
“What would you like me to do?”
Kris cocked her head and ran her fingers through my hair, considering. Then she yanked me up by the hair and maneuvered me over her lap. My face hung down so all I could see were the legs of the chair and the curtain of my own hair falling around me, brushing the floor. My bare ass stuck up in the air, and Kris stroked it with her palm.
I expected her to say something, to tease me or tell me to count, but she didn’t. She spanked me, hard, merciless, each blow heavy and stinging, all over my ass and the back of my thighs. I squirmed and she pulled my hair.
“I didn’t tell you to move,” she said.
Kris lightly rubbed my reddening ass and legs with her palms, soothing my burning skin. I relaxed a little and kept myself still. Then she started again, slapping with more force. I let out a shriek.
She laughed. I was loud when I came, but rarely during anything else. I certainly didn’t scream just from a spanking. I wanted to tell her it was the shock of it. I wanted to cover my embarrassment. But I couldn’t, so I kept myself frozen and bit down on my lip to keep from yelling out again.
After she’d made me sore, delightfully humiliated, and terribly wet, she ordered me back to my knees. I knelt before her on the floor.
“What am I going to do with you?” She cupped my face in her hands.
Kris stood up and walked to the couch, motioning for me to follow. I crawled behind her, resting on my knees in the plush of the living room rug when I knelt before her. She sat in front of me on the couch, my face directly across from her crotch.
“Unbutton my pants,” she said. I did and slid them down her legs, along with her boxers.
She smiled wickedly at me and grabbed me by the hair again. Awkwardly, she angled my face to her pussy. I adjusted and started lapping her up. She was as wet as I was, which made me even hotter. I loved teasing her clit with my tongue, finding a rhythm and edging her toward release, then keeping her hovering there. Kris was quiet, just a few moans escaping her lips, and whenever she let me, I made it my secret mission to get her to scream.
But I didn’t get to that time, and I didn’t get to toy with her as long as I wanted either. After what felt like just a few minutes, she started to stiffen. “Don’t stop,” she said and pulled my hands up under her shirt. I barely touched her nipples, fumbling under her clothes, before she came, shaking a little but still quiet. When she was done, I looked up at her.
Kris looked spent and exhausted. I’d thought she was completely over her cold, but she looked a little weak. “You should lie down,” I said. “Take a nap.”
“Maybe I will.”
“And what should I do?” I was hoping she’d tell me to get the vibrator I liked, which was her go-to command when we were short on time or she got stuck at work after eight thirty.
Kris looked at the clock. “You should take a shower and get going.”
I glanced at it too. “I have plenty of time. C’mon, I’m so wet. What should I do?”
Her eyes were tired, eyelids drooping. “You didn’t do your chores without being told, so you should think about that while you’re punished. Take a shower and get dressed.”
I frowned and wanted to argue.
“You aren’t allowed to touch yourself.” She sat up straighter. “Not today, and not while you’re away. Not without my permission. If you want to come, you have to ask me and I’ll tell you if you can.”
I swallowed hard. My clit ached. I struggled with my desire to object—this wasn’t what we agreed to—and my equal desire to do exactly what she said. To be controlled by her, even when she wasn’t there.
“Do you want to play like that while you’re gone?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do exactly what you tell me to.” I was surprised by just how much I meant it.
“Good.” She kissed me. “Now, go catch your flight.”